Sentience

Note: Most of the back-story of this post was during the times when I was still unsure about myself. Let's begin.

When I was in Form 2, a teacher asked the males in the classroom a simple question: "If you were given a choice between a beautiful girlfriend and an ugly girlfriend, who would you choose?" Everyone chose the beautiful one except me. They laughed back at me, but I wasn't hurt, I was still innocent then. Over the years, my close friends pestered me about this occurrence. They asked me a more accurate question, "With all other criterion such as personality and intelligence controlled for, with only physical beauty the changing variable, will you pick the beautiful girl or the ugly one?" It took me longer to answer, and I succumbed to the beautiful one. However, I retorted, "What's wrong with picking the ugly one?"

In retrospect, I am much impressed at what I did back then in that classroom of early pubescent teenagers. What I have already known about in my innocence, albeit not knowing about it, was more than just stupidity. It was sentience. It is what humans use to claim that they have a higher intelligence than any other known lifeforms. It is out ability to feel, to be self-aware and conscious of our surroundings. It is not just intelligence, but wisdom applied.

So, what's wrong with the whole picture? Many people who are already in a (healthy) relationship must admit: there are far better looking guys/girls who are smarter, more charming, and for the lack of a better term, a better mathematical fit compared to the person you are already with. Would you break up with your current partner just to go for the better match? Some people might say yes, but others will stay loyal. Fidelity is one of the many various elements of human sentience. It serves no survival value and retracts from the basic animalistic instincts to reproduce and be the fittest member to push the propagation of our species forward. It is basically, a concept under the bigger umbrellas of sentience: morality and ethics. There is no black and white in sentience, there's just shades of gray..

Gay relationships are a little different. Technically, they cannot propagate their own lineage by themselves. Does this factor change the equation? Not entirely. Although there are many in the gay scene who are in open relationships or have multiple sex buddies, there are still a hopeful bunch who are proud to be more than human. I can only hope that you are still together because of choice, not pity, not unreasoned loyalty.

Remember, the main element of sentience is the volition of absolute choice. We are not talking about the illusion of choice of which you think you were defaulted the permission to choose the better partner, but rather the ability to choose because you want to and because it makes you, you. There doesn't need to be a reason for everything. I quote Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory: "This is a classic example of a Münchausen-Trilemma: either the reason is predicated on a series of sub-reasons leading to an infinite regression, or it tracks back to axiomatic statements, or it’s ultimately circular, i.e., I’m moving out because I’m moving out."

Being able to stay in the gray areas, form our own preferences and perceptions instead of conforming to general stereotypes, as well as being random and illogical: these are all what gives us depth (of which I will blog about in a future post). Depth gives a relationship more than just plain meaning: it provides plenty of space to experiment with each other's emotions, experiences, thoughts and behaviors. Most importantly, depth gives us character, of which we cannot build on just shallow interests and traits.

So would you go out with the ugly guy/girl now? Dive deeper, you might be surprised.

Meh.

Edit: You just might find a pre-slim Kim Pil Sook (Dream High), Fatso (Love on a Diet), or any other equivalent.